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No. 1077 - LITTLE PEOPLE ARE IMPORTANT!

No. 1077

Jim Davidson -- NEWSPAPER COLUMN

LITTLE PEOPLE ARE IMPORTANT!

There is something every person should do if we truly wish to be a successful human being, and that is to treat every person we meet as if they are the most important person in the world. This is not always easy and I do the best I can, even though I fail from time to time.
One thing that helps me is to constantly remind myself that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. The way God sees us is that we are all, regardless of our circumstances, a person of great worth and value to Him, and that no person is more valuable than another. I was reminded of this life-lesson when a friend sent me something recently that really caused me to think. I would like to share it and hopefully it will make a positive difference in your life.
This lesson came about as a college professor taught his students each year, and he did it by making a most unusual question part of a pop quiz. The quiz also contained a number of other questions, and most students breezed through each one until they came to the last one, which was: “What is the name of the woman who cleans the school?” As one student said later, “Surely this was some kind of a joke. For me, I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.”
“Just before class ended, still another student asked if the last question would count toward their grade. ‘Absolutely, said the professor. ‘In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant … they deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello’. This was a good lesson I learned that day, and I’ve never forgotten it, and neither should you. I also learned her name was Dorothy.”
There were a few other important lessons in what my friend sent me. May I share one more with you? You know, sometimes it is those important, yet simple, lessons that can make the difference between our success and failure. After all, why do we go to school or college? Please think about the point of this one. “In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress came along and put a glass of water in front of him. ‘How much is an ice cream sundae?’ he asked. ‘Fifty cents,’ replied the waitress.
“The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. ‘Well, how much is a dish of plain ice cream?’ he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient. ‘Thirty-five cents,’ she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. ‘I’ll have the plain ice cream,’ he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn’t have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.”
To be sure, little people are important, without regard to station or age, and this is the primary reason a group of special volunteers build and present quality, personalized bookcases and a starter set of books to children being reared in low-income families. Most of these families have few, if any, books for their children to read. The number now is over 2,500 and we are making a difference.
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(Editor’s Note: Bookcase for Every Child – Changing Lives & Futures – ONE AT A TIME. Please visit our website: www.bookcaseforeverychild.com)